


Something’s Not Right

by Maisie_top_trash



Series: Unseen - Fear Will Lose [43]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Childhood, Childhood Mental Illness, Mental Illness, OCD, Panic Attacks, Self Harm, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maisie_top_trash/pseuds/Maisie_top_trash
Summary: Tyler acts up at basketball.Tyler acts up at the library.Tyler acts up at home.Something’s not right with Tyler.
Series: Unseen - Fear Will Lose [43]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/561244
Comments: 22
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 3.5 years ago (holy fuck time flies) I wrote one of the first instalments of this Unseen series called The Messy Bookshelf about Tyler’s childhood, based on my own experiences with OCD.
> 
> I recently re-read that fic, big mistake, as any writer knows it’s always best to leave the past in the past because fresh eyes can be harsh, and my first reaction was to delete it straight away. I was so close to doing it before realising that a better response would be to revisit the topic with my new style. I respect some people might prefer the old Maisie way of writing, but here’s something new - enjoy! 
> 
> 3 chapters coming over the next 3 days

“Hey baby,” Kelly spotted Tyler traipsing out of the gym, backpack on his shoulders so big it was almost down to the back of his knees, hands on each of the straps, and eyes on the floor. 

As soon as he heard her call, his eyeline flicked up as he raced over to her as fast as his little legs could carry him, and he immediately buried his face in her stomach and she wrapped her arms around him as best she could. 

“Oh hey darling, hello, how was practice today?”  
“Iwnnagoum,” he mumbled into her shirt.  
“What was that baby? Mommy can’t hear you,”  
“I wanna go home!” Tyler pulled his face up to almost yell at her, then hid away again as she sighed. 

All the others kids on his basketball team were leaving together, talking, laughing, meeting up with their parents in the parking lot, but Tyler didn’t like any of the other kids and Tyler most definitely could not be trusted to walk into the parking lot by himself. 

Even just in the past month alone, he had managed to slip from her attention twice and had run out into the road. She was doing her best to teach her son about road safety, but it just didn’t seem to be sinking in, and so she walked into the sports hall at the end of every practice to collect him instead. 

“We’ll go home sweetie, you’ve had a really long day, haven’t you? Why don’t you let Mommy carry your heavy kit bag for you, then we’ll walk to the car together and go home.”  
“No, I, I wanna carry it,” Tyler stepped back a little and put his hands back on the straps, tugging on them so they were even tighter on his little shoulders.  
“Mommy doesn’t mind baby,”  
“No, no, it, the, the label says Tyler Joseph, it’s Tyler’s bag, it’s my bag, it’s mine,”  
“I know it’s yours darling, and if you want to carry it then that’s okay,” Kelly knew her son had strange attachments to all his belongings, and didn’t want to cause a scene in the gym by insisting she take the load and consequently make him cry. 

The possessive thing wasn’t new. It had admittedly got worse since he started basketball club at the local elementary school and she had sewn name labels onto his things so that they didn’t get lost. As soon as he had learnt to read his name, he became obsessed with putting it on everything and not letting anybody else touch it from then on. 

On paper it didn’t seem so bad, but with a 5 year old brother sharing the same bedroom with him, Tyler was in hysterics almost every night when Zack dared to touch one of his teddies or one of his books or one of his socks. He’d even convinced his mom to put a laminated name label on his bed and labels on cutlery and plates that only he was allowed to use. It was getting out of hand, but Kelly didn’t know what to do. If she tried to lay down the law and say enough was enough, Tyler would go into meltdown and scream and shout and cry and even start pulling his own hair and pinching his own arms. She couldn’t bare to watch it, and so she let him have his little labels. 

“Ah, Mrs Joseph, wonderful, just the lady I was hoping to see. Would now be a good time for me to grab a word with you and the little guy?” Coach Baker, the head coach of the Tiny Tigers, came over to them with a grin up to his ears.  
“We’re going home,”  
“Tyler! Don’t say that to Coach, he’s a grown up,” Kelly gasped apologetically at his rudeness, but the man’s smile didn’t falter.  
“That’s alright dude, you wanna go home and play with your toys, I get that, but can I talk to you and your Mom for 3 minutes? Then you can go home.”  
“4 minutes.” Tyler mumbled his favourite number, cowering behind his mom.  
“4 minutes, awesome,” Coach chuckled, then gestured for the pair of them to follow him over to the bleachers. 

“Be polite, okay?” She whispered to her son, taking his hand even when he squirmed away from her in protest, and leading him over to the benches as well. 

Coach sat down first, then Kelly sat twisting to face him and tried to lift Tyler up onto his lap, but he refused, so stayed standing next to her instead, bag still weighing down his small frame. 

“So buddy, do you wanna tell Mom what happened today or should I?” Coach Baker asked Tyler.  
“N-n-nothing happened,” he squeaked.  
“You got upset quite a few times, didn’t you bud? Cried quite a lot?”  
“I didn’t!” Tyler insisted but Kelly knew the truth. 

“He’s, uh, he’s struggling with his sleep at the moment, he gets nightmares most nights, so I think he’s overtired.”  
“Have you tried seeing your family doctor?”  
“Yep, on their advice we got him some melatonin to try, but you don’t like it, do you baby? So he won’t have it until it’s the middle of the night, by which point he’s already exhausted.”  
“Tyler you gotta take the medicine from the doctor.” Coach tried to instruct him.  
“No! No! I don’t like it! No!” He huffed with surprising insistence for an anxious 7 year old. 

“He’s really struggled this week, especially today. He wouldn’t touch the balls, he wouldn’t do most of the warm up, he ran back to the changing rooms like 5 times,”  
“Only 4!” Tyler corrected him, again with his favourite number.  
“But 4 is still too many Tyler, isn’t it?” Coach said to the child as Kelly sighed again. “We know he’s a good kid, but it’s difficult for us as staff to motivate the rest of the group to complete the drills we’re setting when Tyler gets to be an exception. Rather than working hard, they want to be messing around like him, and too much staff time is spent trying to persuade the other kids to work or chasing after Tyler every time he runs off.”  
“He’s being disruptive,” Kelly read between the lines.  
“I’m afraid that it is getting to that point, yes,” 

“Now there are things we can do. The school here has a great learning support system and we can request an aide to be with Tyler during basketball to be in charge of his care and assist him in doing good listening and joining in,”  
“An aide? Aren’t they for kids with physical and learning disabilities?”  
“Yes,”  
“Tyler doesn’t have a learning disability though, he’s doing so well at homeschool with me, he’s progressing way faster than the average for his age, I should know, I used to be a school teacher. His spelling is phenomenal, he practices his times tables every night out of choice, he’s not learning disabled,”

“I suppose I was thinking of autism,”  
“Autism?” She echoed the word back, looking at her son who she had never even considered struggling with the condition. “That’s not a learning disability, is it?”  
“I think it’s technically a developmental issue? Or a behavioural issue? I’m really not an expert, but I do know that the school learning support team here work with lots of the kids who are struggling in similar ways to your son. I know you chose to homeschool him, which I’m sure has so many benefits, but it doesn’t unfortunately mean he’s never been evaluated by an educational psychologist, and I would highly recommend that Tyler goes to see one,” 

“Tyler’s not sick, he’s a smart little boy,”  
“I don’t think intelligence has anything to do with it Mrs Joseph,”  
“He’s helpful too, he always makes the beds with me and does the laundry with me and stacks and empties the dishwasher with me too. He’s a good boy,”  
“That sounds very helpful, well done kiddo, but I wasn’t insinuating he’s naughty. Suggesting he get some help isn’t an insult so don’t feel you need to defend him - I just want the best for him,”  
“I just really don’t think he needs additional support.”

“Tyler, bud, do you find coming to this school to play with the other boys fun?” Coach turned to her son, who she wished hadn’t been made to listen in, just in case he internalised the comments.  
“No, I wanna go home,”  
“Is it quite stressful for you?” He carried on asking, and Tyler looked to his mom for help with big round eyes, slightly bloodshot from crying during practice. 

“Stressful, it means like sad and mad and worried all mixed together.” She explained to him, intrigued for his answer.  
“Yeh! I’m feeling stressful all the time!”  
“You’re stressed every day? Why are you stressed every day bud?” The man asked her child.  
“Cos everybody doesn’t follow the rules,”  
“The other kids don’t?”  
“No, they’re so loud all the time, and messy too, and mostly loud.” Tyler replied.  
“How about you - do you follow the rules Tyler?”  
“Yes,” he nodded with certainty  
“What about when I make the rule that everybody has to stay in the gym during practice? You left 4 times today,”  
“Nooo! That doesn’t count!”  
“Why not?”  
“Because everyone was being too noisy!”  
“So it got too loud for you? That’s why you ran away?” Coach asked for confirmation, and Tyler nodded. 

“What about when I asked you to do the drills with a ball and you cried? Was all the bouncing too loud for you?”  
“No,”  
“So why didn’t you join in?”  
“The balls are dirty,”  
“Dirty?” Coach echoed one of Tyler’s favourite words. He said it about a hundred times a day by Kelly’s count. “What do you mean by dirty? We clean them,”  
“They’re dirty and bad, Mommy, Mommy I wanna go home,” Tyler was reaching his limit and her heart hurt for him. 

“I appreciate your concern Coach, really, I do, but I ought to take him home.” She intervened.  
“Alright, well think about what I suggested regarding getting in touch with a psychologist to get an evaluation done, because we both know that this behaviour is not rational,”  
“I will,” Kelly didn’t know how honest she was being. 

“Also consider whether this team is the right place for him,”  
“You don’t think he should be here? He loves basketball, don’t you honey?”  
“Kelly he cries every practice,”  
“It’s just because he’s tired, and the kids are loud, but you play basketball with Mommy and Daddy and Zacky and little Maddy nearly every day, right Ty? You love it, and it’s good practice to play with everyone here,”  
“I like it with you Mommy,” Tyler mumbled to the floor and Coach stared at her knowingly. 

“There’s another basketball session that runs here, it’s a club rather than a team, so it’s non competitive and low pressure, and there are a couple of other kids who need extra support that go along for fun. It’s run by Mr Angove,”  
“Who’s that?”  
“He’s a volunteer, a dad of a kid with Down syndrome who wanted to play basketball but couldn’t cope in this environment, so his dad created the club for a more relaxed approach. I feel like it would let Tyler enjoy his hobby and give him a chance to socialise without so much upset.”  
“Hmm,”  
“Of course if you feel he would be better suited to the team then we’ll do our best to facilitate him since he does really show potential on his better days, but how stressed and overwhelmed he’s getting is obviously a cause for concern, so it’s something that you could perhaps discuss with him over the weekend,”  
“Again I’ll think about it,” Kelly sighed, standing up. 

“You gonna try and take your medicine from the doctor tonight so you can get some sleep?” Coach stood up too, looming over the small boy, so Kelly put a hand on his little shoulder supportively. To her surprise, he didn’t twist away, but instead shuffled over to her to be taken under her arm for shelter. 

“No,” he answered honestly.  
“Well at least have an early night, okay little guy? And have a nice weekend - try not to feel stressed, you’re far too young to be feeling stressed, just chill with your family, yeah?”  
“Mommy, I wanna-“  
“Go home, I know love bug. Say thank you to Coach Baker for looking after you during practice, then we’ll go home,”

“He said he thinks Tyler is autistic,”  
“Autistic? Like Mrs Branner’s boy? He’s nearly 10 and only says like 5 words and smashes up their house every other day. Tyler’s doing work for the grade above in almost every subject, he’s reading like a sixth grader when he’s 7, he’s had the dedication to practice all his multiplications every evening for 40 minutes for the past 3 years, he’s a clever kid, he’s not like Mrs Branner’s boy,”  
“That’s what I said to him,”  
“I’ve got half a mind to drive to that school and teach the prick a lesson for talking about my kid like that,”  
“Chris,”  
“I know I know, I won’t,”

“Obviously the autism stuff is nonsense, Ty’s fine, he’s fine, but some of the other things he said have made me think if I’m honest,”  
“What else did he say?” Chris asked.  
“Well he asked Tyler whether he enjoys going to basketball, and he said no. He said it makes him feel stressed, and I mean he cries every single session, every single one without fail, so why do we keep forcing him to go? I know basketball scholarships are important when we’re considering college options, but if he hates it already, aged 7, then there’s no way he’s going to stay motivated enough to get anywhere with it.”  
“Scholarships are important yeah, but I can play with him here every night, train him up, I mean I know I can do a better job than Coach Baker because this way it’s one on one, but I like that he goes to the elementary school because it’s social for him. He’s homeschooled, he doesn’t like the neighbours, he doesn’t like talking to anybody at church - he doesn’t have any friends. The plan was that a team would give him a chance to make those kinds of bonds with kids his own age, rather than just having us and the littles as company.” 

“It’s coming up to 6 months that we’ve been taking him there 3 nights a week, he hasn’t made any friends Chris, he’s an outsider.”  
“They’re just warming up to each other,”  
“6 months, it’s been 6 months, it’s not just unbroken ice.”  
“So what is it? Why doesn’t he make friends? What’s wrong with him?” His father demanded some kind of answer.  
“Nothing’s wrong with him, he’s perfect, he’s our baby boy and he’s perfect,” Kelly defended her eldest child. “I suppose all the other boys there go to school together as well, and he’s different cause he’s homeschooled. Kids can be cruel like that,”

“So what can we do? Because he needs friends. Should we introduce him to mainstream schooling?”  
“No, I love homeschooling him, he’s so good with me,”  
“I mean he’s not good all the time, he loves a good scream or a tantrum when things don’t go his way,”  
“Again, that’s just kids, we don’t need to send him to school because of it. In fact I bet all the other kids at school are having twice as many tantrums,”  
“It’s not all kids - when was the last time Zack chucked a fit? And he’s five!”  
“Zack has his moments too,” Kelly assured him. 

“Look, I’ll admit, Tyler is more particular than Zack, and he reacts worse to change, but they’re brothers not clones, it’s just their different personality traits, and it’s not fair to punish Ty because he’s not the same as Zack,”  
“I’m not trying to punish him, really, I'm not, I'm just concerned about his social skills and his friendships, and think proper school might help, but if you feel homeschool is better for him then I’ll agree with you. You know him best.”

“He begs to leave basketball every time I collect him, he begs, he hates it and not because of the sport but because of the boys. I can’t, in good conscience, pack him on a bus every morning to spend the whole day feeling that desperate to get away,”  
“You don’t think the exposure could be good for him? He can’t live under your wing forever,”  
“No I know, and we agreed to send him to a high school when he’s old enough, but for now I want to be his Momma and protect him from things that make him scared,”

“Maybe we should take him out for a while.” Chris proposed.  
“Take him out?”  
“Yeah, pull him from the team, he can just practice at home with me, then maybe start back again with the school in September? Hopefully by then he’ll be a bit more mature and brave. I don’t want him feeling scared.”  
“Okay, plus by then Zack will be old enough to go too. It might be easier for him if his brother is there, do you think?”  
“When Tyler’s not screaming at him about something, they do actually get on pretty well. Zack looks up to him so much, even with all the aggro he gets thrown his way. I bet it would help Ty stay calm to have someone there with him.”  
“Agreed.” Kelly nodded with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll call Coach tomorrow and tell him we’re gonna hit pause until September.”

“I think we need to find him another activity club then, if basketball is off for now. What’s something that 7 year olds do which isn’t gonna be too much for him to cope with?”  
“Are jigsaw clubs a thing? That’s the only hobby I can think of where he doesn’t get so worked up that he panics - jigsaws or cleaning?” Kelly thought out loud.  
“Well when I was in school, all the quiet kids used to go to chess club. How do you think he’d manage with that? It’s nowhere near as demanding as basketball, and he’s got the brains for it,”  
“He’s so competitive though, and controlling, I don’t know how he’d do with losing, or-“

“Mommy,”  
“Hey baby,” Kelly twisted to see Tyler stood in the doorway, picking at his fingers, and she hoped he hadn’t been stood out in the hall, listening to them talk about him.  
“Mommy the clock in the, in, in the TV room says 6.30,”  
“That’s right bubba, good job reading it,”  
“Mommy, that’s dinner time.”  
“I’ve got a chuck roast in the oven right now, it’s been slow cooking since 1, and I’m just waiting for my potatoes to get soft enough to mash, so dinner will be 5 minutes, okay?”  
“No! Mommy! N-no, no, no 1pm is lunch time Mommy! That’s lunchtime! It’s dinner time! No!”  
“That’s when it started cooking, and now it’ll be lovely and tender for dinner time.”  
“It won’t be dinner time, stupid! It will be 5 minutes after dinner time, and that’s too late!!”  
“Tyler, let’s not talk to Mommy that way please.” Chris sighed, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“Sometimes after basketball we eat later, don’t we honey?”  
“No we don’t! Dinner time is 6.30! We always do dinner at 6.30! And I’m not honey, I’m a boy!”  
“Yes you are sweetie, you’re my big boy,” Kelly smiled at him, even though she could see the frown on his adorable little face. “Are Zack and Maddy still watching TV?”  
“Z-Z-Zacky keeps t-touching stuff Mommy! He touched the flower pot and the photo frame with me as a baby and the photo frame with Granny and the ph-“  
“He’s allowed to touch things sweetheart,”  
“No! No! No! No!” Tyler was getting panicky already, and his fingers stopped picking at each other and instead started raising up and up towards his head as he tried not to get in a complete flap. 

“I know you don’t like it, I know you don’t want him to, but do you remember what we agreed? You’re 2 years older so you get to go to bed 20 minutes later, and if you want to spend those 20 minutes wiping down everything he touched then you’re allowed to - Mommy even bought you your own set of cleaning cloths, remember? The yellow and blue ones?”  
“No Mommy, no no no no, Zacky’s bedtime isn’t until 7.40! That’s too late Mommy! The touch will be there too long Mommy!”

“You’re supposed to be looking after Maddison right now, aren’t you Tyler? Is she okay?” Chris opted for the distraction technique, whilst also genuinely enquiring.  
“I just putted her in the corner so she doesn’t touch anything like Zack keeps doing, he touched the-“  
“In the corner? What do you mean Ty?”  
“So she doesn’t run around and make mess!”  
“Show me?” Kelly stood up and followed her son out of the kitchen and across the hall to their TV room. 

Sure enough, trapped in the corner of the room, behind the big arm chair and side table and under a tall lamp, unable to escape, was Maddy. The toddler didn’t seem too fussed, happily playing with plastic cow she had found from... somewhere, but Kelly rushed over to rescue her, swinging her straight onto her hip. 

“Hey beautiful girl, hey, did your big brother pin you in, hmm? So silly, isn’t he silly?”  
“Momma! Cow!”  
“That’s right sweetheart, and what noise do cows make?”  
“Moooooo,” Maddy imitated loudly and proudly, “moo moooooo, moooooooo!!!”  
“Shhhh!” Tyler had covered both his ears with his hands and was straining hard as he squeezed them tightly closed. 

“Mommy! Tyler did be mean to me!” Zack was up on the couch, pouting out his little lower lip.  
“Liar!!” Tyler denied it immediately.  
“Mommy’s here now, hey? I’ll make sure he’s nice to you. And it’s nearly time for dinner,” she sat down next to Zack on the couch and kissed his little head, letting Maddy wriggle and escape, going to play with her cow on the rug happily. 

“It’s not nearly time for dinner, it was time for dinner 2 minutes ago and now we’re late late late late!!”  
“Tyler,” she warned with a little raise of her eyebrows as he started pounding on her knees with his little hands, slapping her over and over again out of frustration over something she couldn’t understand. “Tyler, don’t hit Mommy please.”  
“It’s l-late Mommy! We have to go!!”  
“Stop hitting Mommy’s legs.”  
“We! Have! To! Go!”  
“Enough.” She grabbed hold of his hands when the drumming starting getting so rough that it was beginning to actually hurt her, and Tyler let out a distressed squeal, followed by panicking whimpering breaths as he tried to pull away. 

“Hey, enough, use your big boy words and tell Mommy why you’re so upset all of a sudden,”  
“Bad boy!” Zack yelled out at his big brother proudly, pulling a face at him as Kelly tried to stop him twisting free and running off.  
“Ah! Zacky, no, don’t call your brother names, that’s not very friendly, is it? Say sorry,”  
“Tyler did never ever say sorry to Zacky for being mean!” The 5 year old sulked.  
“Let me go!!” Tyler growled through gritted teeth. 

“Come here, come on, come here,” even with his squirming and arching, it was easy enough for Kelly to pull her eldest up onto her lap and bundle him into a cradling hug, tight enough to stop him immediately bailing. “What’s the matter? Why are you so riled up, hey?”  
“Cos dinner! It’s too late!” His voice was strained as he wriggled in her arms.  
“Mommy’s the boss and Mommy says it’s not too late.”  
“It’s too late it’s too late it’s too late it’s too late,” he didn’t seem to be listening to anything she was saying.  
“Tyler.”  
“...it’s too late it’s too late it’s too late,”  
“Are you worried about not having enough time to have your bath before bedtime? Because Mommy promises you’ll have plenty of time to get clean,” she knew that was a buzz word for Tyler, but still he continued thrashing and twisting in her arms, chanting about how late things were.

“Tyler is such a bad mean naughty boy today Mommy, Tyler is a bad meanie nau-“  
“Zacky, sweetie, why don’t you go and see if Daddy needs your help putting the knives and forks on the table?” Kelly suggested and the younger was quickly distracted, jumping off the couch and racing off to help his father out. 

“...late, it’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too-“  
“Why’s it too late, Tyler? It’s just me and you, so you can talk to Mommy,” Maddy had toddled after Zack with her cow in hand, leaving the pair alone. “Are you worried about the meat cooking for too long? Because slow cooked meat can go all day, I promise it’s still good to eat, in fact it will be super yummy to eat,”  
“No no no no,”  
“So what’s wrong baby?”  
“Errything!” The little boy was on the verge of tears. 

“Do you not like Momma’s pot roasts? Is that why you’re upset? Because I’ve got left over ham in the fridge if you-“  
“It’s! Too! Late!” Tyler had his final snap of frustration and resistance before beginning to cry, losing all the tension in his little muscles and flopping against her chest, curling up against her as he sobbed. 

It was happening a lot and she really didn’t understand why. Even if she did have dinner served by 6.30, there would be something else that would set him off. Maybe his vegetables were touching his meat or maybe Dad’s glass was too close to the edge of the coaster or maybe Maddy’s placemat was getting too messy with the food she smeared around. Every single night there was something. 

“Alright baby, alright, Mommy’s here, you don’t need to cry sweetie. Mommy’s got you,”  
“I’m s-s-so h-hu-hung-gry,”  
“I’m not surprised sweetheart, you worked so hard at basketball earlier, I bet there’s a big rumble hiding in your tummy. We can go get you some dinner as soon as you show me a smile, hey?”  
“N-n-no M-M-Mommy, is’too l-late! I h-h-have to w-wait till b-b-bre-breakfast,”  
“Ty honey, no, you wouldn’t have your afternoon snack either, so that will mean you haven’t eaten since lunch. If you don’t want to sit at the dinner tab-“  
“I c-c-can’t,”  
“Okay, so if you don’t want to come to dinner, that’s okay, I know you’re tired, but will you let Mommy make you up a plate to eat in here? I’ll make sure nobody interrupts you whilst you’re eating,”  
“I c-can-n’t,” she had no idea where the rules he followed were coming from, certainly not her, but it broke her heart to see the red damp face screwed up in such a pained way. 

“Hey, want me to mash- oh,” Chris poked his head round the door and saw her cradling her sobbing son. 

“Tyler’s feeling a bit overwhelmed Daddy, and we were just plotting that maybe it’s better if he takes some time by himself to calm down and rest whilst we have dinner,”  
“You’re in need of another time out, huh kiddo?”  
“I-I’m s-s-so h-h-hun-g-gry,”  
“Well come join us for dinner then,” Chris said from the doorway.  
“It’s t-too l-l-late!”  
“Nope it’s not, I haven’t served up yet, you can still come help Zacky and me mash the potatoes?”  
“N-n-no I c-c-c-can’t! M-M-Mommy, t-tell h-h-hi-him n-no!”

“He’s overtired, I think an early night would do him good Kell,”  
“Agreed,”  
“E-ei-eight o c-clock is my b-b-bed-time! M-Mommy! M-Mom-my!! I h-have to h-ha-have my b-bath and w-wipe Za-Zac-cky’s t-touch a-and b-brush m-my tee-th a-and-“  
“We’ll do a quick bath and I’ll clean up down here for you, that way you can go up when Zack does and we can do stories all together, wouldn’t that be nice? Story time with your little brother?”  
“NO! No no n-no no n-no n-no no,” Tyler started squirming again and Kelly just sighed, wishing she knew what was wrong and how to help. 

“Alright, enough Tyler, let’s get you to bed.” Dad came into the room with looming outstretched arms, and Tyler scrambled off Kelly’s lap so rapidly that he accidentally scratched her in the process, and ran across to hide behind the opposite arm of the couch, hyperventilating.  
“NOO!”  
“You’re behaving like a toddler who skipped his nap, come on, if you’re gonna behave like a baby then I’m gonna treat you like a baby and put you to bed at 6.30,”  
“NOOO! NO NO NO NO! NNNOOO!” Tyler sounded fucking petrified and Kelly didn’t know what to do anymore. 

“What do you want Tyler? What does Tyler want?” She tried to ask but was ignored. “If you don’t want to eat or be in the kitchen, or go to sleep or have stories, what do you want?”  
“He doesn’t even know what he wants, he just likes protesting,”  
“He’s clearly not having fun Chris,” Kelly sighed, starting at her hysterical son. “Can you go finish up the mash love? I’ll deal with him,”  
“Fine,” he turned and left. 

“Come on baby, talk to Momma, what’s gonna get Tyler feeling smiley again?”  
“N-n-noth-thing!! E-e-everything’s r-rui-ruined!”  
“I don’t understand sweetheart, why’s it ruined? Because it’s 6.35 and we normally aim to be eating by 6.30? Baby, that’s not a big deal and there’s absolutely nothing to be getting this upset about. Whatever it is that’s making you scared or frustrated, Momma can fix it, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just addressing the autism mention - I appreciate in some scenarios it can seem similar to OCD, I’ve had people comment that on other fics of mine, but in my universe Tyler has OCD as he embodies my own diagnoses. I sent Kelly down the autism route because, whilst not super well known, I personally found it’s far more known than childhood OCD. So yeah, OCD not autism but I can understand why some people get the wrong end of the stick, including the characters! Xx
> 
> Also thanks for all being angels lately. Life has kinda sucked but your love means the world xxxx  
> Maisie


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for violence and brief mention of vomit towards the end

“Mommy, Mommy!”  
“Hmm??” Kelly woke up with a groan, rubbing her eyes to try and focus them on.   
“Mommy!”  
“Morning baby,” she smiled groggily when she saw Zack looming over her, shaking her awake with a big smile. 

With another few blinks, her night started coming back to her. 

Tyler had been hysterical all through supper and in the end she ran out of things to say or do, so left him on the couch to calm down on his own and went to eat an awkward dinner with the rest of the family, listening to him sob through the wall. 

She’d helped him and Zack and Maddy bathe one after another, which calmed him a lot, then together they cleaned up downstairs whilst Chris read Zack stories and bounced Maddison to sleep, and that one-on-one cleaning session had really helped to soothe Tyler right down. She’d even seen a small smile as he wiped the window sill clean of all the, quote, badness. 

By the time 8 o’clock rolled around, Tyler was so drained from basketball and sobbing that he could barely keep his eyes open as she tucked him into bed, pulling the sheets tight like he liked. At that point she had been naively optimistic that her eldest son was going to have a solid night’s sleep. 

The first screams started not long after 10. Kelly elected to take the first trip up the stairs to settle him after the nightmare, and to also get Zack back off to sleep, since they shared a room and every noise Tyler made, he heard. Maddy thankfully managed to stay asleep. 

The second set of screams came at 11, and the parents decided it was time for them to go up to bed anyway, so Chris went around turning off the lights and locking the doors whilst Kelly had another crack at getting Tyler to sleep again. 

The third time Tyler woke them, he appeared at the end of their bed just before 2am, snivelling tears and whimpering about big scary spiders in his nightmares. Kelly and Chris put him between them in their bed and cuddled him till he drifted off again, and Chris managed to transfer the 7 year old back into his own bed without waking him up. 

By the fourth time Tyler came to his mom in tears, she was too exhausted to spend the time whispering enough comforting words to calm him down and instead just caved and took his little hand and climbed into his little bed with him, letting him sleep in her arms. 

“Mommy did have a sleepover with Zacky and TyTy!!” Zack announced excitedly, clearly happy to have woken up to the surprise additional roommate. 

Kelly quickly looked to her right on the little mattress and saw that Tyler had rolled away from her in the early hours but was seemingly still asleep. 

“S’right! Mommy had a sleepover! But Ty’s still sleeping, so should we be super quiet secret agents and tip toe to Mommy and Daddy’s room together?” She whispered as quiet as she could, desperate not to disturb Tyler.   
“Yeh!!!” He got excited at the idea and scrunched his face up, then rushed towards the door as Kelly swung her tired and heavy legs over the side of Tyler’s kid-height bedframe and resisted another groan as she pushed herself to standing so that she could follow Zack. 

They found her husband, propped up in bed by both their pillows, glasses on the end of his nose and yesterday’s paper folded up in his hands so it was strong enough to withstand the pressure of his pen etching the letters into the crossword grid. 

“Daddddyyyy!!!!”  
“Morning little man,” He dropped the newspaper and pen and held his arms out so that Zack could jump up onto him. “Hey love,”  
“Hey,” Kelly kissed his pouted lips and laid down next to him as he let Zack climb all over him.   
“How’s big’n?”  
“Still sleeping,”  
“And you? How much sleep did you get?”  
“Enough, just,” she yawned. 

“Daddy daddy,”  
“Yes buddy?”  
“Daddy can we play basketball today?”  
“Absolutely, that sounds like lots of fun,”  
“And I can showed you my bestest throwing!”  
“Yeh we can do throwing and catching games if you want, and I’ll lower the hoop a bit so you can show me how you dunk again, it’ll be super fun, hey?”  
“Yeah!!” He was so excited that he bounced up and down on Chris’s chest, making him groan playfully. 

“I had a dream and guess what?!” Zack took his dad’s glasses off and played with the collapsing arms.   
“What??”  
“You have to guess Daddy!”   
“Oh, uhhh, did you win gold at the Olympics?” He made a random guess and Zack sniggered adorably, amused by the inaccuracy.   
“Nooooo Daddy, I was bestest friend with an alien with 4 eyes and 9 legs and-“

The 5 year old’s dream recital was interrupted by the familiar sound of Tyler crying out hysterically. 

“ZACK! ZACK! ZAAACK! ZACKY!”  
“Momma’s coming baby!!” She called out to him as she rolled back out of her bed after only a few brief seconds and went back to the boys’ bedroom across the hall. 

Tyler was stood up on the end of his bed, both his hands tugging on his hair harshly. 

“Morning sweetheart,”  
“Zacky’s dead M-Mommy,”  
“Hey hey now, no he’s not sweet boy, he’s in my bed with Daddy and he’s fine, you hear me? He’s fine,” she could see how scared her little boy was and rushed over to him, pulling him into a hug. Because of the height of the bed, it was perfect to be able to tuck his head against her chest and for her to cuddle him close, making sure to pull his hands away from his hair to stop him hurting himself even a little bit. 

“I w-woke up and he is not here! I, I, I, I th-th-though-thought-“  
“Oh baby, that must have been really scary, but he’s with Daddy - can you hear him giggling? He’s with Daddy and he’s absolutely fine.”  
“I was scared!”  
“You worry about him so much baby, which shows me how important he is to you and how much you love and care about him, but you don’t need to be this worried, okay? It’s up to Mommy and Daddy to keep you boys and Maddy safe, that’s our job because we’re the grown ups and the parents, so Tyler doesn’t need to feel like it’s up to him to make sure Zacky is alright. Mommy and Daddy can do that, and we do it every single day, so you can trust that Zacky is always safe, even if you can’t see him straight away, alright?”

“I thought he was d-d-dead c-cos I d-didn't finish my f-fours!”  
“You didn’t finish your fours? What do you mean Ty?” Kelly stroked the hair off his face, concerned by the complete lack of logic in the scary words he was saying.   
“I, I, I, I ha-have to t-touch in f-fours or e-everybody goes a-away forever, and, and M-Mommy, you slept in my b-bed so I c-couldn’t do my f-fours!”  
“Now where oh where has that silly idea come from, hey sweetheart?”

  
“We never go to the library together without Zacky though,”  
“Nope, but this is a super special Mommy-Tyler trip,” Kelly swung their hands back and forth, keeping her grip tight to ensure Tyler didn’t slip away and run straight into the road beside her, like he had done so many times in the past if her attention had been drawn to something or someone else for even a second. 

“Why??”  
“Why? Well Mommy knows that Tyler has been feeling sad and angry and scared a lot this week, even more than usual, so I thought it might be nice for us to do something fun, hey?”  
“I like doing special Mommy-Tyler trips,” he smiled up at her and her heart swelled.   
“I’m glad poppet, I’m really glad. And hey, maybe if Daddy and Zacky and Maddy have a fun afternoon together too then we can add it to our regular schedule? Would you like that? Mommy-Tyler trips every week?”  
“I’d like that,” he nodded with a shy smile. 

“What other things does Tyler like?”  
“Umm, uh, I like my blue t shirt?”  
“It’s in the wash today but you can wear it tomorrow if you’d like. What else makes Tyler happy?”  
“Umm,” he thought about it long and hard, then shrugged, giving up. 

“Sometimes Mommy feels sad because Mommy knows you get very sad and scared and I don’t know what makes you happy again.” She decided to be honest with the 7 year old as they walked down the pavement towards the library.   
“I only get upset when everything is wrong,”  
“How do you know if something is right or wrong?”  
“I just know!”

Kelly was desperate to know where all the rules were coming from, because they weren’t from her. 

“Say hello to the lady sweetie,”   
“Hello,” Tyler waved at the librarian on the front desk when they arrived, then hid behind his mom with an uncomfortable giggle.   
“Hello there,”  
“Hi, I was hoping you could tell me if you have any books in stock about a-u-t-i-s-m?”   
“A-u-t-i-s-m?” Tyler could recall the spelling straight back and queried it. “What’s that?”  
“It’s a boring book for grownups darling, we’ll also find some really good ones for you,” she squeezed his little hand then turned back to the librarian.   
“I can’t speak for specific examples off the top of my head, but if you look at the 610 class over by the photocopiers there are books on human medicine and health, or 150 just against this wall for psychology, I’d say they’re your best bet,”  
“Wonderful, thank you so much,”

Tyler was relaxed, which was a strange occurrence recently, especially in public, and Kelly was enjoying witnessing the curious way his eyes scanned the bookshelves. His breathing was steady and casual, his fists weren’t bunched up, his face wasn’t coated in tears or twisted in anguish - she only wished he could be so at ease all the time and she was determined to make that wish a reality. 

“Mommy,”  
“Yes angel?”  
“Mommy can we get rid of Zack and Maddy and Daddy? Just be Mommy and Tyler in our house?” He asked quietly and innocently.   
“It’s okay for us to sometimes have breaks from each other, I know it can be really loud for you sometimes, but sweetheart we’re a family and we love each other and we’re going to live together until you’re a grown up,”  
“I don’t love them,”  
“Ty!”  
“What? I don’t! They’re bad!”  
“Baby you love your family so so much, this morning you were sobbing because Zack wasn’t there when you woke up, you love him, you love all of them,”  
“No I don’t.” He shook his head adamantly and Kelly just sighed. 

The library had a children’s section in the back corner that she took Tyler and Zack to once a week for their reading group. Zack loved it, sitting right at the librarian’s feet and staring up excitedly, clinging to every word and getting involved with every action, meanwhile Tyler tended to hide near the back, near the grownups, near his mom. 

Thankfully there was no group in process at that point in time and there was nobody in the area, so Kelly could take Tyler straight over without having to worry about other children overwhelming him. 

“Where do you want to sit sweetie?”  
“I, I have to sit here?” He gulped timidly.   
“It’s cosy down here baby, look at all these chairs, they’re the perfect size for you,”  
“Are, are you going to leave me?”  
“No of course I’m not Ty, I’m going to find my grown up book and you can pick out your next Roald Dahl book because you finished Fantastic Mr Fox last week, didn’t you? And then Mommy and Ty can sit and read our books here together,”  
“No no no no,”  
“Tyler, hey now baby, what’s wrong?” She immediately dropped down to his level and held eye contact, wanting to stop the spiral, his breath already picking up pace. 

“S’bad,”  
“What’s bad?”  
“Don’t go,”  
“I’m not going anywhere Ty,”  
“DON’T GO!”   
“Shhhhhh!” A hush came from the other side of the library but Kelly didn’t give it a moment of her time, far more concerned with her little boy’s state than frankly ridiculous etiquette. 

“Tyler I’m not going, I am not going anywhere, look, Ty look at me, I’m sitting down, I’m settling down, are you going to settle down with me?” She sunk to the soft polka dot carpet they had in the kids’ corner and crossed her legs, and as soon as Tyler pulled his hands off his face and saw, he dove straight into her lap.

“I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying with you, Momma’s staying with Ty, it’s okay, it’s all okay,” Kelly bundled him close, feeling him shaking, feeling his heart pounding, as she cradled him. “Breathe for me handsome boy, nice and calm, you’re okay, Momma’s not going anywhere and you don’t need to get worked up, it’s all okay,”

There seemed to be no logic to his distress and that was what concerned her. She understood that some children were simply naturally more anxious than others, but Tyler’s sudden waves of panic came out of nowhere and that meant it was a daily struggle to try and prevent them from happening. Furthermore some of the things he got caught up on, the things he said, they sounded like the mutterings of a madman and it was beyond difficult to understand what was fuelling them. 

“Can you tell Mommy what’s wrong?”   
“Bad bad bad bad!”  
“What’s so bad sweetpea?”  
“S-s-somethi-ing’s wr-wrong!” He burst into tears and whimpered with his face smushed against her chest, leaving a trail of dampness on her shirt within a few seconds. 

Once the tears started, it would take a while for them to claw it back. 

“I’m sorry it feels like something’s not right baby, but Momma promises that everything’s okay. Everything’s okay here, everything’s okay at home, nothing bad has happened and nothing bad is going to happen.” She attempted reason but knew Tyler was rarely soothed by truths. “I’m staying with you Tyler, me and you together forever, yeah? We’re a team and I’m not leaving you, not ever. I’m sorry if I scared you when I said I was going to get my grown up book, but if you don’t want to be apart at all then you can absolutely come with me to the bookcase, okay? You can come with me a bit later and you can hold my hand and once we’ve got our books, we can share a chair, how about that? So you can feel I’m still with you? We don’t have to be apart at all.”

Tyler was still crying, it was a horrible cry to listen to, a painful cry like a child who’d just skinned their knee on tarmac, but instead it was completely mental torment. 

“M-M-Mad-dy,”  
“Maddy? What about her sweetpea?”  
“D-da-dang-danger!”  
“She’s not in any danger, take a deep breath and try and relax with Momma angel, nobody’s in danger, especially not Madster. She’s probably having her nap right now, and I suspect you’re feeling overtired from your nightmares last night so you can have a nap now too, I’ll hold you just like this and you can drift off, it’s absolutely fine. You can sleep in my arms, or on the armchair, or I can take you back to the car and you can sit in your car seat if you’d like?”  
“NO!” He screamed again. 

Yet again she didn't care about the silence rule. Her son was hysterical, she wasn’t going to hush him for their sake, they could just get over themselves. 

“L-le-let me g-g-go!” He suddenly started squirming and thrashing.   
“Alright baby, alright, Momma’s letting go, but no running off, okay? No running,” she helped him get his scrambling feet on the floor and then propped him upright, hesitant to release his arm, knowing he had a tendency to make a break for it when he got worked up. To give herself the best chance of keeping up with any bolts, she also clambered back onto her feet before finally allowing him to be free. 

For a moment he just stood there weeping, hands in his hair, frozen. Kelly unintentionally held her breath. Then, like a switch had been flicked, Tyler lunged at the nearest bookshelf of children’s literature and started ripping them off the shelves handfuls at a time, feverishly and maniacally clawing big stacks down to the ground, not caring as their spines cracked and the pages ripped, not caring as he stood on them to reach more and more, not caring as the librarian ran over and started screaming at them. Tyler couldn’t stop himself and it took Kelly grappling onto him with all her might as he tussled and strained and dragging him out of the library sobbing and screaming for the books to finally find some peace. 

“Last one,”  
“Gah, that one hurts,” she couldn’t help wincing.   
“It’s pretty deep, sorry love, I’m being as gentle as I can,” 

Kelly had tears in her eyes, not necessarily because the cleansing wipes were irritating the wounds, but because it was her own son who had caused them. 

She had tried to do a nice thing for him, tried to imagine what a calm peaceful day might look like to him, and she got it wrong. She felt like she let Tyler down, she felt angry at herself for not being able to understand what her little boy needed, and she felt herself teetering towards hopelessness at the increasingly deteriorating situation. 

Of course that provoked a whole new set of emotions - how dare she even think they’d run out of options? Tyler was her son and she would never give up on him, she’d continue to push forwards and find answers to give him the stability that he was so clearly missing in his life, but for today she was tired. 

It had been a really long, really bad, day. 

“You good?” Chris asked and she just nodded numbly as he sat down next to her at the kitchen table, discarding the last of the bloodied wipes and band aid wrappers in a pile. “When he’s calmer I’ll clip his nails right down, and we’ll keep on top of it, clip them and file them every week, make sure he can’t do this to anyone again.”  
“Like we’re declawing a vicious cat?”  
“Like we’re protecting our family Kel.” 

The scratches all up her arms and the back of her neck were somewhat painful and the blood that had seeped through and stained her shirt was dramatic, but she knew by morning they’d see the true extent of the damage Tyler had done whilst unable to control himself. She could feel the bruises covering every part that he could reach as she tried to calm him down, some of the bruises accidental as he tried to escape, some of them intentional as he thumped and kicked her in agonising frustration. 

She’d be black and blue by morning. 

“My guess is at least a grand,”  
“To replace all the books?”  
“At least,” she nodded. “He ruined nearly two of those cases in the kids’ section before I could stop him,”  
“They’ll charge us far more than the cost of replacing them, just out of principle,” Chris suspected. “How do you wanna handle it? Obviously we’ll take his allowance, do you wanna take his birthday and Christmas gifts too?”

Kelly didn’t want to punish him at all, so she said nothing, just shrugged. 

It was against her gut to reprimand Tyler when all his bad behaviour were borne of such immense and overwhelming panic - surely making him frightened wouldn’t help the situation. Simultaneously though, Kelly found herself questioning whether she was doing the right thing anymore. For so long she’d been giving Tyler such a long leash and now she was wondering whether he was now choking her with it.

Maybe if she had been firmer when this all began, if she’d nipped it in the bud when he first start acting up, maybe they wouldn’t have a lifetime ban from Zacky’s favourite library and she wouldn’t have a body covered in the cuts and bruises. 

“M-M-M-Mmmm-Mo-Momm-my,”  
“Did I tell you that you could leave that chair in my office yet Tyler Robert?” Chris’s voice was stern and unwavering as their eldest poked his head around the door, but Kelly was pushed even closer to tears.

His little arms were covered in bite marks, his own bite marks, right from the tips of his fingers to the tops of his shoulders, and his skinny cheeks were plastered in tears and snot, but most prominently red scratch marks, several deep enough to draw blood. 

He’d been beating himself up. 

“I I I I I I,”  
“You don’t have permission to leave yet, so turn around and go back until Mommy or Daddy is ready to talk to you.”  
“I I th-th-thre-threw u-up!”  
“You’ve puked?” He checked and the little boy nodded guilty. “Jesus, vomit in my office, could this day get any better?! Right, go grab some cloths and the spray from under the sink - you’ve made yourself sick with how hard you’re crying, so you’re gonna be the one to clean it up.”  
“Chris,”  
“Come on, get to it,” he pointed Tyler towards the supplies - not that he needed to be told - and the distraught 7 year old staggered over there like his feet weighed 10 tons. 

“Sweetheart have some water, swirl it around, rinse your mouth out,” Kelly told him. “Be careful not to choke - Chris, can you get him his cup?”  
“Meanwhile my office carpet is soaking up all that vomit?”  
“Well you go clean it then, he needs a minute.”  
“No, Ty needs to do it.”  
“Chris, do you think giving him cleaning supplies in this state is really a good idea? He’s going to be up all night scrubbing and scrubbing again which means I’m going to be up all night supervising him. Please, you clean the office, I’ll clean him?”

Chris gave her a small glare, one of those ‘don’t contradict me in front of the kids’ glares, and she had to admit that after the day they’d had, she was hardly confident in her parenting skills, but looking at Tyler, all she wanted was to cuddle him close and she couldn’t switch off that maternal instinct. 

“Tyler Robert, listen to me and listen to me well. If you dare lay another finger on your mother, you’ll be out on the curb in an instant; you touch her, you scratch her, you hit her, you kick her, you shout at her or you so much as breathe too close to her, you’re out of this house. No more chances, final warning. You understand me, boy?”

Tyler was shaking and crying, but he managed a tiny nod and Chris was satisfied, walking away to clear up the puke in his office. 

Kelly stayed sat at the table, watching Tyler as he stood completely still, not even looking at her as he trembled. 

“Get yourself some water baby, yeah? Your cup is in the cupboard,”

She hadn’t told anyone, not wanting to worry them, not wanting to get her baby in even more trouble, but she was secretly quite concerned about one of her ribs. After the librarian had gone ballistic at them and after she had fought and fought to get Tyler outside the building, she had to try and force him into his car seat and in his panic, he had kicked her hard. Really hard. She’d broken a rib once before whilst playing hockey in school and the pain took her right back. 

Standing up to go and help him sent shooting pains so sharp she momentarily only saw black, but with a forced smile she made herself go over to her first child and get his cup with his little name label out of the cupboard, Tyler too hysterical to do it himself. 

“What do we do when we can’t breathe?” She reminded him whilst filling the cup half way. “We count to 4 and we try again, shall we do that together?”

Tyler looked away when she tried to make eye contact. 

“1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,” his mom gave him a steady pace with his favourite number but her little boy was doing his best to pretend she wasn’t there. “Sweetheart, don’t turn away from me please,”

The 7 year old was doing a really good job of avoiding her, twisting away as she tried to find his eyes; the moment she slinked her hand around his skinny arm he gasped and started choking on his own hysteria. 

“Look at Mommy, Tyler,”  
“C-C-C-ca-can’t,”  
“You can baby, Mommy wants you to look, please, I want to see your beautiful eyes. I promise I’m not mad, I promise I’m not going to tell you off, I just want to see your eyes,”

Tyler contemplated for a moment before shakily spinning on the spot, crying. 

“Have a little bit of water for Momma, then spit it out so your mouth doesn’t taste so nasty,” she lifted the cup to his lips, not trusting his sweaty shaking hands not to drop it, and he took a tiny sip then went on tippy toes and spat it out in the sink basin, coming straight back to her for a little bit more, then spitting again, then sipping, then spitting, then after the fourth time sipping and spitting, he retreated and took a few steps away from her again, arms wrapping around his chest, clearly displaying his self bite marks. 

“Tell Mommy why you’re crying,”  
“I, I, I, I, I, I, I,”  
“Let the air in,”  
“I’m b-b-bad!”  
“You were quite bad today, yeah, you had a bad day, but Mommy’s not cross. Mommy still loves you so so much handsome boy, and I think Daddy will say you need have bread and butter for dinner tonight, but after dinner I’m going to take you straight to bed and we can do a story and I’ll sing you a song if you’d like, and then tomorrow is a new day. Today was bad, tomorrow will be good, yeah?”  
“E-e-ev-every d-day I am b-bad!”

“Did you do these?” She already knew the answer, pointing to the bites, not touching, knowing he hated touching. He nodded. “Why sweetheart?”  
“I-I’m b-bad!”  
“No, no you’re not Tyler, you’re scared and you’re anxious and you’re very particular, but you’re not bad. You’re young and you’re really bright, and I think sometimes your brain thinks too fast for your age and you don’t know how to use your words yet to say what you’re thinking, and then you can’t find any words is when you get flappy and wobbly, and that’s when bad things happen. Every day you’re getting bigger and you’re getting better and finding your big boy words, and one day you’ll be so good at your words that you won’t need to do big bad things to show Mommy what you’re feeling.”

“I, I, I, I w-wa-wanna s-stop being b-bad!”  
“I’d like that too sweetie, because I know how scared you feel when you get like this,”  
“M-my he-head is j-j-just always b-being bad! So so so BAD!” He cried out and his hands flew up and began pounding on his temples over and over again as he wept. 

“Sweetheart, sweetheart no, oh Ty, oh poppet stop,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy international fanwork day! Go to tell your favourite author that you appreciate their work! <3
> 
> Have a lovely day xx


	3. Chapter 3

“Careful, slowly does it, slowly,” Chris pulled back the duvet cover and gently helped Kelly twist round and lower her legs to the ground. “Where’s best to hold you to help you stand?”  
“Um, uh,” she struggled to think of a part of her body that wasn’t bruised. “Just take my hands?”  
“Alright, take it easy, I’ve got you,” he held both of her hands and took a considerable amount of her weight through them as she wrestled to stand, a groan quickly being followed by a sharp wince. 

Everything hurt. 

Her entire body hurt, from her shins to her shoulders, an array of bruises swelling up overnight and making waking up a horribly painful task. She wasn’t ashamed to say she had already cried once today and would no doubt do it a dozen more times before dusk, it was just too hard a thought to accept that her little boy had become so agitated that he could reduce her to this much pain. It hurt on more level than one. 

“Nearly there love, deeps breaths, you’re okay, nearly there,” her husband guided her one tiny stagger after another towards the en-suite, where he’d already drawn her a hot bath improved with soothing salts that would hopefully alleviate the constant throbbing that was like a recurring drum in her mind. 

Tyler hurt you. Tyler hurt you. Tyler hurt you. 

It wasn’t really Tyler, that’s what she kept lying to herself about, that it wasn’t her son responsible for the black and blue tone her skin had taken over night. She wondered how much longer she could entertain that version of reality before she had to accept that the little baby she had raised in what she thought was the best possible way had become a violent child. Tyler was violent. Maybe she could only see the panic and the fear in him right now, but one day she’d allow herself to see the violence too. 

“You okay? Need a break?” Chris checked when they were only a few metres from the bath tub, and Kelly realised she was crying again.  
“Yeh no, no break, s’just my rib,”   
“See how the bath helps but if you’re still in this much pain in an hour then I don’t see what choice we have - we’ll need to get your folks to watch the kids whilst we take you to the ER,”  
“And say what? My 7 year old beat me up?” She whispered at the made it through the bathroom door. “No, Chris, they’ll take one look at me and blame you. Before you know it we’ll have the cops dragging you in for a domestic abuse charge. I don’t need the hospital,”  
“I’d rather get pulled in for some bogus charge than you not receive treatment you need love. Don’t let that element be a deciding factor - get the help you need and we’ll deal with any fallout as it happens,”

Kelly didn’t say anything as she stood there, crying. 

“Let me help,” he gestured to her pyjamas and she nodded, knowing she was feeling too delicate to remove them herself. 

It didn’t feel all that long ago that her husband removing her nightgown and running her a bath would have meant something very different, and it was scary just how much her life had changed because of Tyler. 

She’d always wanted to be a mother, always being that child who turned any toy given to her straight into a baby she could rock or feed or bed, and at all her school career meetings, right through till high school, she’d always told her guidance counsellors that she couldn’t wait to be a mom. The day she found out she was pregnant was the best of her life, Chris and her had danced around their apartment cheering and crying and kissing, and the first time she held Tyler in her arms was the first time she’d ever felt like there was a special slot in the universe for her. 

And now she was scared of him.

The unknown is innately terrifying, and not understanding her little boy or what was compelling him to act the way he did was a horrible sensation, like an ongoing leeching of her soul through a pit in her gut. With Zack and Maddy she could always figure it out, they were being grouchy because they were tired or hungry or in need of some one-on-one attention, but with Tyler she didn’t have the first clue why he was the way he was, and so she couldn’t make it better. She couldn’t help him. 

“Sweetheart, listen to me,” Chris cupped her face, brushing away tears with his thumbs. “It’s all going to be fine, it’s all going to be fine, I promise you. He’s not the first bad kid to ever exist, there will be programs out there for dealing with this kind of behaviour, something that will give him the strict discipline he needs to get his act together. I know you’re scared, I’m scared too, but we’ll find someone or something that will put an end to this once and for all, and I promise you, I promise you, I will never let him hurt you again. This is the last time, never again,” 

She was starting to whimper. 

“He, h-he’s not a b-bad kid Ch-Chris,”  
“Love, look at yourself, I mean it, really look at yourself,” he pointed her to the mirror but she could hardly bare to see. She was a patchwork of bruises. “Maybe you don’t think he’s a bad kid, but he’s gonna become that way if we don’t make it clear that this kind of senseless violence is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our family. Just think, if he can do this to you, his own mother, then what’s going to happen once he gets older and starts going to school? Think of what he could do to the other kids, and who knows, maybe he’ll go for the teachers too and before we know it, he’ll be behind bars and still fighting. We need to put a stop to this and that starts with us admitting he’s a problem.” 

  
Usually on a Sunday morning the Joseph family would attend church. They were part of a really wonderful church, a family friendly church with a kids’ club so that Maddy and Zack could go off and play with other little ones, as well as hear the occasional biblical story. 

The club went up to the age of 10 but Tyler chose not to go, instead he preferred to sit between his mom and his dad in the main hall, and Kelly had once thought that was a good thing, him paying an interest in the full service, but since making the decision to remove him from basketball, she realised it was just another incidence of him avoiding socialising with other kids. 

It made her sad. 

He liked church as far as she could tell. He liked the predictability of it, how they’d do a welcome speech and then loosen up with a song and then they’d hear an anecdote, say a prayer, sing another song, turn to the bible, pray again and then round it off with one last song. He liked structure and Sunday morning service could provide him with that - as for the religious content, she really couldn’t tell. 

After church they’d spend half an hour or so saying hello and catching up with their friends from the community, which Tyler loathed, so he’d tug on her hand and urge her to hurry up. Eventually she’d cave and pick up the little ones and they’d all get in their car and drive a mile down the street to their favourite cafe for brunch. 

Brunch was a highlight of Kelly’s week - it felt like proper family time, time reserved just for them with no other intentions or pressures. It wasn’t like family basketball time where secretly they were priming the youngsters for scholarships, or family dinners at home which took a lot of energy to prepare but were rarely finished, this was just time for them to exist as a family. Even Tyler could tolerate it. 

Except this week they’d cancelled. Kelly had burst into tears trying to get down the stairs, so the chances of her surviving a morning outside the house in one piece were minimal, and instead Chris had encouraged her to rest. 

She was bad at switching off, she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t sit there on the couch and do nothing. 

The longer she sat there, the worse the pain got. Her body hurt more and more, and her heart ached deeper and deeper. 

“Mommy,”  
“It’s okay sweetie, Mommy’s right here, I’ve got you,” she stroked Maddy’s hair back and held her closer to her chest. 

They’d successfully weaned her off breastfeeding a few months ago, and honestly Kelly missed that intimate time with her only girl. So much of her day was occupied with the boys, keeping Tyler calm, stopping them fighting, feeding Zack’s insatiable appetite for entertainment, teaching their schooling, and a little timeout with her youngest was well needed. A cuddle with the half napping girl was precious. 

“Jesus Christ Tyler! Get back here! Tyler Robert!”

Maddy was disturbed by the shouting in the other room, wiggling in Kelly’s arms, and she was disturbed too. It had all seemingly been going so well. 

She could hear his little footsteps sprinting away from his father, then Chris’s pounding after him. Just as she was about to shout out not to chase him, that it would only agitate him further, that it was better to let him have some space to calm down, she heard the front door open. 

Tyler was making a break for the road. 

“Oh no you don’t young man, you stop this crap right now, you hear me?!“  
“NOOOOO!!”  
“Enough. You’re being silly.”  
“NNOOO! PLEEAAASSEEE!”

“Mommy will be right back, stay here darling,” she couldn’t sit back and listen any longer as her son screamed, so slipped Maddy onto the couch cushion and rushed as fast as her painful body could carry her into the hall. 

Chris had Tyler up in the air, holding him round his waist with great big bear arms as the little boy kicked and thrashed, face red and snotty. 

“Tyler you’re upsetting Mommy now, enough, calm down.”  
“He can’t calm down whilst you’re restraining him 3ft off the ground.”  
“Watch, the moment I put those feet on the ground, he’s running straight into traffic.” Chris’s voice was strained as the crying child twisted and fought him.   
“LET! ME! GOOOOOO!”  
“Shush!” His father snapped right back at him. “You are being a terror young man, an absolute terror! I’m sick of this, I’m sick of you always being so difficult! You seriously need to sort your behaviour out or Mommy and Daddy will have no choice but to treat you like a naughty boy. That means no more cuddles, no more sleeping in our bed, no more special time, no more cleaning-“  
“NOOO!”  
“Yes! We have tried and tried and tried to show you how to be nice by being nice to you, but you don’t learn! So if you won’t learn that way, we have to start punishing you instead-“  
“LET ME DOWWWNNN!” Tyler was crying and he squirmed.   
“You are not the boss anymore Tyler, I am, and so no, I’m not putting you down, I’m taking you to your room.”  
“NOOOO!”

“You’re going to your room and you’re going to sit there all day. All day. No playing, no toys, no TV, nothing. You can sit there with paper and a pen and you can either do absolutely nothing, or you can write Zack a letter to say sorry for ripping his colouring up, and Maddy a letter to say sorry for screaming in the middle of her nap, and Daddy a letter to say sorry for this, and Mommy a letter for beating her up yesterday and making her cry lots and lots. You’re gonna write those letters and you’re going to mean every single word, because if you don’t start accepting responsibility and feeling remorse for your actions then I really don’t know what to do with you. I really don’t know what to do with you.” 

“M-m-Mommy,” Tyler reached out for her, but even though it felt so incredibly wrong to do so, she had to look away. Chris was right, they couldn’t keep rewarding the unacceptable behaviours because all it did was reinforce that he was allowed to hit her till she cried and allowed to run out into the street, and if the only way to break the cycle was the break his heart, she had to make the tough choice. She had to look away as Chris took him to his room. 

  
“What colour do you think I should make his bow tie?”  
“Blue! Blue with red spots!”  
“Oh yeah, good idea sweetheart, that’ll look really cool,” she grabbed a blue crayon from the massive pile and started shading between the printed lines. 

Zacky rarely sat still long enough to colour an entire picture, so earlier that morning when he’d put an impressive amount of effort into his tiger only for Tyler to snatch it and rip it into a little pieces because he went over the lines, was too much for the 5 year old to cope with. 

Whilst Chris wrestled Tyler into his bedroom, Kelly had found Zack crying under the kitchen table with his scraps of paper. 

They’d hugged down there for a while, then taped the picture back together as best they could, and still shaken, Zack agreed to try making another with Mommy’s help. 

They were now on their 5th picture together and Zack was still not back to himself fully, but his confidence was returning and he was happy to sit in his own chair rather than her lap now; Kelly was enjoying the one on one time with him, even if she could hear the occasional bang from upstairs that set her imagination off. 

“Alright, wish me luck,” Chris emerged from the kitchen with a plate and a sigh.   
“Is it lunch time Daddy?” Zack asked hopefully.   
“5 more minutes kiddo, we’re having a big cooked brunch, I even made fresh hash browns like you get from the cafe most weeks, and there’s bacon and eggs and pancakes too, but first I’m just poppin some bread and butter up to Tyler for his lunch.”  
“Does he not get hash browns?”  
“No he most certainly doesn’t. Only good boys get good food.”

“I’ll take it up to him,” Kelly offered.   
“No. Last time you were alone with him, he did that to you.” He gestured to the bruises on her arms that she quickly moved to cover. “I’m not having you with him alone, he’ll take advantage of your amazing empathy, either he’ll manipulate you or physically attack you and you deserve neither. Stay here with Zacky, I’ll do it.”  
“Chris, darling, I said I’ll take it up to him.” She made it clear that it wasn’t a request.

He knew when he’d met his match. He was fully aware that it was stretching for her to have Tyler alone in his room and so he acknowledged that it was unrealistic to expect her to go all day without so much as checking in with their son. 

“If you’re not down in 5 then I’ll come up,”  
“Okay,” she took the plate from him.   
“And if you come back down with him, I’m taking him straight back up again. He needs to understand we’re serious about this,”   
“I won’t undermine you. Full day in his room, that’s where we’re at, I’m in agreement, I just want to see that he eats something and hasn’t cried himself sick again.”  
“Alright,” he nodded. “It’s hard seeing him upset, but we’re doing this because we love him,”   
“We’re absolutely doing this because we love him. He gets upset every day anyway, at least today there’s a chance of something changing in his behaviour.”  
“Exactly.” Chris kissed her cheek. “Shout if you need me,”  
“Won’t be long,”

She staggered out of the room on her stiff bruised legs, pausing to poke her head around the door to the playroom Maddy was happily entertaining herself in. Even at 2 years old she was phenomenally independent, which could potentially be a good thing in life, she just hoped she hadn’t already forced her baby girl to feel like she had to manage everything on her own because her parents were too busy to be with her. Despite the happy chatter, Kelly made a mental note to swing by and play make believe with the girl on her way back from Tyler’s room. 

The stairs were tricky with the pain, and balancing a plate made it harder, but Kelly pulled herself up along the banister and urged herself along with the idea of being closer to her baby. 

Finally she reached the boys’ door and knocked twice, then let herself in. 

“Ty honey? It’s Momma, I brought you some lunch,”

It took her a second to find Tyler hiding in a ball underneath his blanket, and he didn’t come out. 

She went over to his little table and put the plate down, picking up the sheets of paper that he’d been writing on, clearly having obeyed his father’s demands. 

The first was addressed to her. 

To Mommy,  
I am really very incredibly sorry. I am sorry I was bad in the library and I did break the books, and I am sorry I hit and kicked you and made you cry. I didn’t want to make you cry. Sometimes I am a very bad boy and I am really really sorry. It will never ever happen again and I am really sorry, and if I am bad again then you can throw me away. I am really sorry Mommy.   
Tyler

It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard him say before, but seeing it written down in his neatest scrawling handwriting was different. It hit deeper. It stung deeper. 

“Tyler, I’m sitting on your bed. I’m not going to peak if you feel safer staying under there, but if you want to say hello to Mommy, or have a conversation, or a cuddle, then I’m right here.”

She waited for a moment, then there was a little rustle and the blanket started moving to reveal her son, face still covered in tears and cheeks marked with fresh scratches. He also had those painfully harsh teeth marks on his fingers again - he’d been biting to punish himself again. 

“Hi,” she smiled patiently.   
“Can I come d-downstairs now?” He whispered, not making eye contact.   
“Daddy and I agree that if you can’t be nice to us and your siblings then you can’t be around us. You have to stay up here, sweetie. Sorry.”

Tyler nodded, hugging his knees to his chest, still looking away. 

“Can we talk about this?” She reached out and touched his chomped fingers, but he gasped and rushed to shove them under his armpits, shuffling away. “Okay okay, Ty, I’m not gonna touch, if today is a no touch day then I won’t touch, I promise. No more touch.”  
“No touch!”  
“No touch.” Kelly reassured him. 

“Can you tell me why you did that to yourself though Ty?”  
“No,”  
“Why not sweetie? I won’t be mad, I just want to understand so I can help you,”  
“Because I don’t know Mommy! I don’t know why!”  
“You’re not quite sure why you’ve been hurting yourself?”  
“I always do it and I don’t know why! I, I think there’s an alien in my brain Mommy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do people have any requests for this universe? Or if you tell me which fics have been your favourite then I’ll know which ones to use as inspiration for more <3 
> 
> Trying my best to keep writing, I’ve got a few other pieces pretty close to final edits, and it’s been a really good way of coping with things lately. I’m still inpatient and my care team think I’ll be in a while longer and then get moved to a long term residential if the funding comes through which is tough because I just wanna go home, but oh welllllll, gonna go bury my head in more fanfics!
> 
> Maisie x


End file.
